The New York Journal, And Daily Patriotic Register

POET's CORNER.

To the FROST.

O come healthy frost, benignly keep,
With purer air begun,
Still glisten, under skies serene,
Beneath a cloudless sun.
Let baleful mists, no more prevail,
Nor autumn's dreaded breath,
Who spreads, in his contagious gale,
Variety of death.
The Summer's agues, that invade
The Student's close recesses;
Nor art could conquer with its aid,
Nor gen'rous wine repress.
But see! the salutary cold,
Shall drooping vigour rear,
Shall brace the young, and give the old,
To breathe another year;
Yet, let not man on strength rely,
Since all creation now,
With languid limbs, or pine, or die;
O'er whelm'd in heaps of snow.
He feels alone—the partial good,
Whilst all the feather'd kind.
And all the water's swimming brood,
No warm retreats shall find.
See; where the dreary scenes extend,
Despoil'd with lifeless trees ;
Whence icicles in streams depend,
Whilst all their juices freeze.
The fish with labour draw their breath,
(On fins no longer fleet)
And linger out a hopeless death,
Beneath the skater's feet.
In rapid glide with port elate,
He skims the slippery way,
And, thoughtless of the victim's fate
Enjoys his frosty day.
Perhaps on Lapland's icy shore,
The sons of warmer coats.
In one cold hour might be no more,
Unequal to the frosts.